Nest Cam IQ indoor security camera | First Impressions

I’ve been interested in setting up some
security cameras for my home. And I’ve been testing the new Nest Cam IQ for a couple days
now to see how well it works for my needs. Full disclaimer the Nest Cam IQ was provided
as a sample to me, and this video is also sponsored by Nest. But from my testing so
far of the Nest Cam IQ, video quality is pretty good and works really well even at night,
watching live feeds of all your cameras and scrolling through past footage on the mobile
app is super simple, and intelligent alert notifications means I’m not getting false
positives every time my drapes move or shadows shift from the sun. But there are a couple
things like internet bandwidth requirements, camera mounting limitations and the subscription
pricing that also need to be considered. Hi I’m David and here is what you need to
know about the new Nest Cam IQ. First let quickly look at what you get inside
the box. There’s the main unit. Quick manual and warranty information And the power adapter
and with the 10 foot USB C Cable. Taking a closer look at the Nest Cam IQ, new
highlight features include a 4K image sensor, HDR, and 12x digital zoom and enhance. It
also records a wide 130 degree field of view. One thing to keep in mind is that the Nest
Cam IQ will only encodes footage at a maximum 1080p HD resolution, not 4K. But having a
4K image sensor means it can process a sharper 1080p resolution video or you can zoom in,
keep seeing the fine details, and then start recording at the new enhanced zoom level.
The Nest Cam IQ also enhances the video quality with HDR so highlights and shadows are still
clearly visible even in less than ideal lighting, such as a room with a really bright window.
Other hardware features on the Nest Cam IQ include: A small green LED that stays solid
if it is recording, and fades in and out if someone is watching live. A ring light that
indicates you’re broadcasting your voice over the speaker that can be found on the
back of the unit. It hard to see but it also features two infrared LEDs (invisible to the
naked eye) that illuminate at night so you can continue to record even when it is pitch
black at night. It has built in wireless support for the latest wireless standards. And finally
the stand on the Nest Cam IQ allows you to adjust the tilt and pan of the camera but
you can’t rotate it to make any level adjustments or use it upside down without the image also
recording upside down. That being said there’s also no included Wall Mounting system but
it does have a ¼-20 thread at the bottom typically used on camera tripods if you want
to use that. But I think for most people you’ll just want to place it flat on a ledge somewhere
in your home To setup and use the Nest Cam IQ you’ll
need use their app on an iOS or in my case an Android phone. You can also use the Nest
Cam IQ from the web app (some features only work on web app) as well but I don’t find
the experience as smooth as it is on the mobile app counterpart. Also initial setup can only
be done from the mobile app for the Nest Cam IQ.
Opening up the app on my Android phone I’m presented with the home page where I can quickly
see the live feed of all my cameras. Clicking on one of the feeds I have a couple options
now. I can quickly scroll up or down in the timeline to review video recorded in the past.
The motion and zone indicators on the left and snapshots on the right make it really
easy to locate important recordings. And from here you can also quickly send small video
clips to others, or talk into the phone to broadcast your voice over the Nest Cam IQ
speaker. If you don’t want your cameras recording
24/7. There are 3 different ways to set it up so the cameras only turn on when you’re
away from home. You can do this manually from the home screen switching between home or
away mode, Or you can configure a time schedule when it will automatically switch on or off
for the different days of the week, or automatically switch between home or away state based on
the location of your phone. Alert notification is another feature that
works well with the Nest Cam IQ. You can configure per camera how the notifications will be sent,
if you only want it sent if no one’s home, And what type of activity will invoke an alert.
This could be when it detects a specific type of sound, some motion, or even intelligently
identify and alert if it sees a person instead of a pet or shadow moving.
There are also a couple other features that the Nest Cam IQ includes such as recognizing
familiar faces, automatic close-up tracking, or creating activity zone to highlight or
avoid area in the camera field of view. But I’ll be honest I didn’t find a huge need
for these features myself. Also to get the most out of your Nest Cam
IQ you’ll need the Nest Aware Subscription. This is needed in order to view the recorded
video history up to 10 or 30 days in the past, in addition some other features previously
mentioned like Activity Zones, getting Familiar Face Alerts, or Creating Clips. Without the
Nest Aware Subscription you’ll still get alert notifications when the camera captures
people, motion and sound but you’ll only be able to view the live stream or picture
snapshots of alerts in the past 3 hours. Your internet connection is another required
piece you’ll need to consider. All footage that is recorded from the Nest Cam IQ needs
to be uploaded to the servers on the cloud. This means you’ll need an internet connection
with at least a 2 Mbps upload speed, and it can use around 200 GB of data per a month
per camera but you can adjust the video quality that will reduce or increase the bandwidth
requirements accordingly. So that’s a quick look at the new Nest Cam
IQ and mobile app. A pretty solid piece of hardware that produces good video quality,
has a simple and easy to use mobile app, and includes a variety of different ways to automate
when your cameras will start recording, or when alert notifications are sent. While the
extra cost of the subscription service, internet bandwidth requirements, and camera mounting
limitations might turn some people off. Overall it’s still as pretty solid solution for
any who needs a little extra security at home. But hope you guys enjoyed this one. You know
what to do. And I’ll see you in the next video.

Love the no-nonsense way you present the information and the clean look to all of your shots – just enjoyable watching, with good discussion of positive and negative aspects – even if it was sponsored.

David Zhang the fing that I love in your videos is that you start the video by talking about the product and then you say "Hi I'm David and this is…" I love this way to start the video and finally your videos are so AMAZING don't stop doing videos like those one. Thanks so much.

congrats to your (possibly) first sponsored tech review video 🙂 great editing and considerations noted. Although this is a first impression video, I hope you give an update to using the Nest down the road to address any caveats you encounter in the future that you didn't capture in your first impression. fyi -somehow this review turned into half condo tour footage 😛